[glutton]

So I changed my freebie's Fantasy>General category to Action-Adventure since I thought it was redundant to have another Fantasy category besides Fantasy>Paranormal... and then this appeared.

#4 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Fantasy > Paranormal
#7 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Action & Adventure

WHAT ON EARTH?! It jumped straight into the Top 10 after being changed categories! O_O Kind of messed up that this would happen, but I'm not complaining... feeling like I should've put it as Action-Adventure long ago though! So awesome... come on Action-Adventure fans look at the bestseller list and pick up the amazing new appearance!

In before Julie kills me. And what an 'adventure' this promo has been lol.

 

[CEMartin2]

I was just advised this could be done yesterday. The person who shall remain anonymous said that you could pick an obscure category, out your book in and rapidly shoot to the top ten- and that it automatically raised your ranking ina large category. Another gaming of Amazon's flawed system.

I was thinking about trying it myself, but it just seems so uncool.

 

[SBJones]

Hummm....  There isn't a steampunk category.  Maybe I should try Non-Fiction/how-to/heating-and-plumbing/pipes-and-steam

lol.

 

[glutton]

I was just advised this could be done yesterday. The person who shall remain anonymous said that you could pick an obscure category, out your book in and rapidly shoot to the top ten- and that it automatically raised your ranking ina large category. Another gaming of Amazon's flawed system.

I was thinking about trying it myself, but it just seems so uncool.

Is 'Action-Adventure' actually an obscure category? I dunno, I see GRRM books opposite mine on the paid side... lol.

My stuff does fit in Action-Adventure and more than some of the other stuff I see in the Top 10 though, it seems like a pretty messed up category (but aren't lots of them?)

Edit: On closer inspection it definitely isn't a 'small easily abused' category. Some of the big authors in it on the bestseller list are Tom Clancy, GRR Martin, John Locke, Amanda Hocking, Clive Cussler, Bernard Cornwell, Jack London, and HG Wells (lol).

OTOH it seems to be a nice mix of what people 'normally' consider separate genres.

 

[CEMartin2]

Nope, A&A is a huge category... but lets look at some others...

Fiction> Genre Fiction> Fairy tales (6 as in, 68 books there.

Fiction? Comic Fiction (153)

Fiction> Horror> Anthologies (36)

Fiction> Horror> Dark Fantasy (244)

Fiction> Religious fiction> Mystery (53)

Fiction> Religious fiction> Biblical (54)


You get the idea. Hmmm. I may move mine to the Fiction, Religious Fiction Biblical, since I have an Antediluvian villain.

Cmon, lets all find categories that are very tiny.

And you know Dark Fantasy is calling you. Me too, maybe...

 

[olefish]

I was just advised this could be done yesterday. The person who shall remain anonymous said that you could pick an obscure category, out your book in and rapidly shoot to the top ten- and that it automatically raised your ranking ina large category. Another gaming of Amazon's flawed system.

I was thinking about trying it myself, but it just seems so uncool.

not really. there are many specialized categories, but only a few of them happen to have the biggest share of eyeballs looking at it. Sure you might raise your ranks, but i doubt the gains are tangible, much less permanent Action/adventure happens to be big active category, compared to historicals or literary fiction. Glutton just happened to find the natural audience for his work.

 

[glutton]

Fiction> Horror> Dark Fantasy (244)

I would have had no idea Dark Fantasy would be this small... possibly because it's under Horror?

And no, I wouldn't dare since horror fans would probably kick my ass for trying to pass off a story where the characters react as mine do as a 'Horror'...

 

[CEMartin2]

What's really interesting to me is this:

Fiction> Horror> Dark Fantasy (244) sounds remarkably like my series. It's got magic, monsters and the paranormal, but with horror elements (splatterpunkish)

But when i go into the amazon dashboard, I'm unable to actually select further than Fiction> Horror... there's no horror subset.

Similarly, since my series has some scifi elements (paranormal ablities), I thought Fiction> Science Fiction> Series (333) might be a good fit. But again, when I go into the Science Fiction sub category there is no "Series" choice to click on.

How are books being classifed then?

 

[glutton]

What's really interesting to me is this:

Fiction> Horror> Dark Fantasy (244) sounds remarkably like my series. It's got magic, monsters and the paranormal, but with horror elements (splatterpunkish)

But when i go into the amazon dashboard, I'm unable to actually select further than Fiction> Horror... there's no horror subset.

Similarly, since my series has some scifi elements (paranormal ablities), I thought Fiction> Science Fiction> Series (333) might be a good fit. But again, when I go into the Science Fiction sub category there is no "Series" choice to click on.

How are books being classifed then?

You could send Amazon a message in Author Central and try to get them to move your books to the specific subcategory...

 

[CEMartin2]

You could send Amazon a message in Author Central and try to get them to move your books to the specific subcategory...

Great minds think alike. I just did that... and questioned why there are categories that are searchable but that we can't pick ourselves. If they tell me they alter categories, I'm going to whip out this: "Then why are a bunch of erotica books being kept in the Men's Adventure category?!"

 

[glutton]

This makes me imagine Remo Williams in a bed gently raking his very sharp nails over Mack Bolan's chest...

 

[CEMartin2]

This makes me imagine Remo Williams in a bed gently raking his very sharp nails over Mack Bolan's chest...

If you imagined that, I suggest you never again read slash fiction. Clearly, once was too much.

 

[glutton]

Men's Erotic Adventure.

 

[CEMartin2]

Got my answer... KDP awesome service reps sent me this:

We can add a total of two categories that aren't currently available to select in your KDP Bookshelf, as long as they already exist in the Kindle Store. If you'd like us to manually change your category, you'll first need to remove the current categories. Here's how:

1. Visit https://kdp.amazon.com and log in.
2. Check the box at the left side of the book and then click on the "Actions" button at the top left, then click "Edit book details."
3. Scroll down to the "Target Your Book to Customers" section and click "Add categories."
4. Choose the categories on the right side of the screen, then click "Remove category."
5. Scroll down the category list on the left side of the screen, and choose the last category - "NON-CLASSIFIABLE."
6. Click on "Save."
7. Scroll down the page and click "Save and Continue."
8. You'll then be directed to the "Rights & Pricing" section. Check the box at the bottom of the screen to accept the Terms & Conditions, then click "Save and Publish."

Booyah! I'm going with Dark Fantasy and Military Scifi. Finally, I'm much closer to what category I think it should be.

 

[Shadow XX]

All seems a bit black hat to me, but if that's your bag...

Reminds me of how people use to get all their friends to buy their book at the same time so that it would jump into the bestseller category for a few minutes at least. Never found out if that actually worked or not...

 

[CEMartin2]

I don't think rankings will help, but when I looked into and saw those categories I otherwise couldn't access... I wanted them! Oh, and I actually chose dark fantasy and scifi series, not military scifi. Doing too much multi-tasking here and got myself corn-fused.

I still have to wonder why they have categories that are searchable but that we can't put our books in. I guess that explains the low numbers of books in those categories.

 

[CEMartin2]

How does the category system at Amazon work?

If I go to the Kindle page, and search Fiction>Horror>Dark Fantasy, then type in a search, my books aren't found- even though they have had the category changed by the Kindle team themselves and list that as one of the categories on the book page.

And it's not just me... I looked at Billy Wong's "Last Minute Replacement" which has a category of >>>Martial Arts. It's not in that category though.

Are indie books not included in the categories? Why even have a category if people can't find it when browsing the categories?

Is there some kind of massive time delay to show up in a category?

 

[glutton]

The email said it might take up to 72 hours for it to change (completely?) but I also see Iron Bloom is now listed as NONFICTION... time for another email?

 

[CEMartin2]

Well, at least my categories are right, I'm just not actually IN those categories.

Funny that they update sales ranks hourly, but it takes so long to update the categories, details, etc.